About Us

Who we are

The Evidence-Based Practice Centre and the Effective Public Health Practice Project combined their vast expertise in the conducting of systematic reviews to the establishment of the McMaster Evidence Review and Synthesis Centre (MERSC). From 2009 to 2015, the centre was focused primarily on supporting the Canadian Task Force on Preventive Health Care (CTFPHC). The name change from Centre to Team reflects our ongoing evolution.

What we do

MERST has conducted systematic reviews related to the effectiveness of public health programs, and health care interventions. MERST has also been involved in the production of numerous resources focused on research methods and tools involved in synthesizing and appraising research evidence. MERST is committed to providing high-quality evidence to health practitioners and decision-makers.

Creating a systematic review is a challenging and engaging process. The staff at MERST is skilled in literature searching, relevance testing, quality assessment, data extraction, knowledge synthesis, and are experts in developing and writing systematic reviews. MERST has been contracted to conduct high quality systematic reviews by various health units and health authorities, as well as various governmental ministries. MERST works in collaboration with our partners/decision-makers in order to define the scope of the systematic review and subsequent literature search strategies.

In addition to systematic reviews, MERST works to create a number of different knowledge dissemination materials such as expeditited reviews, and methods and tools for quality assessment, critical appraisal and knowledge synthesis. Dissemination of our materials occurs via the internet, through relevant networks, and at provincial, national and international conferences.